Job Description

Place and detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials. May perform specialized handling, storage, and accounting procedures. Includes seismograph shooters.

Connect electrical wire to primers, and cover charges or fill blast holes with clay, drill chips, sand, or other material.

Place safety cones around blast areas to alert other workers of danger zones, and signal workers as necessary to ensure that they clear blast sites prior to explosions.

Set up and operate short-wave radio or field telephone equipment to transmit and receive blast information.

Verify detonation of charges by observing control panels, or by listening for the sounds of blasts.

Insert, pack, and pour explosives, such as dynamite, ammonium nitrate, black powder, or slurries into blast holes; then shovel drill cuttings, admit water into boreholes, and tamp material to compact charges.

Connect gun chambers to electric detonating devices, and operate controls at panelboards, in order to detonate charges in guns or to ignite chemical charges.

Examine blast areas to determine amounts and kinds of explosive charges needed and to ensure that safety laws are observed.

Compile and keep gun and explosives records in compliance with local and federal laws.

Measure depths of drilled blast holes, using weighted tape measures.

Place explosive charges in holes or other spots; then detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials.

Clean, gauge, and lubricate gun ports.

Insert powder charges into chambers of sidewall sample-taking cylinders, and assemble cylinders, using special wrenches.